Who Reports Crime? Citizen Engagement with the Police in Russia and Georgia

Abstract

What factors affect citizens' engagement with the state? We explore this question through a study of victims' and bystanders' willingness to report crimes to the police, using data from survey experiments conducted in Russia and Georgia. We find that citizens' willingness to report in both countries is strongly influenced by the nature of the crime, but not generally by instruments that the state might use to encourage greater reporting. Our results recommend skepticism about the ability of governments to easily engineer engagement with the state.

Keywords: police, crime reporting, state, survey experiments, Russia, Georgia

JEL Classification: K42, P26, P48